Natural Selection Review – The Marines

Part 1 – Introduction & The Marines

Natural Selection was possibly one of my most played games in the last couple of years. It’s old, it uses an outdated game engine (Half Life one) and yet it still beats out a lot of multiplayer games in my eyes.

For those who have never heard of Natural Selection (or have but never knew what it was), it can be summed up as a RTS-FPS (real time strategy – first person shooter) hybrid. It involves a great deal of teamwork, which is why most public games are crap. A team of alien invaders are pitted against a team of futuristic marines, in typical online gaming style (e.g. Team A vs Team B).

However, it isn’t quite as simple as an online deathmatch game. The Marine team have a commander who has a a top-down view of the entire map, but there can only be one commander at a time. The commander (usually just called “comm”) can place structures in the map and research new technology and weaponry. The rest of the team play as marine soldiers, who can do the typical FPS actions – shoot and kill. But that’s not all. The marines can build the structures dropped by the comm.

There are quite a few structures available to the Marine team, which I will quickly run through here:

• Comm Chair (CC) - The player who gets in this first becomes the commander, although they can get out and let someone else in at any time.
• Armoury - Dispenses ammo and health to marines who use it. (required to research/drop new weapons)
• Phase Gate (PG) – When two or more are placed, marines can use them to instantly jump between them to reach far areas of the map quickly.
• Observatory (Obs) – This provides access to research for motion tracking (see aliens on HUD when they move), scan (show any enemy presence in the scanned region) and beacon (returns all marines back to the marine start).
• Turret Factory (TF) & Turrets - Turrets can only be built close to TFs. THey automatically detect and shoot nearby aliens.
• Seige Cannons – Seige cannons, like turrets, can only function near a TF. They can only shoot structures , but they do so through walls and with significant damage.
• Arms Lab – Used to research grenades , weapon and armour upgrades. (not new weapons, just more weapon damage)

The Marines themselves have access to a range of weapons, depending on several of them being researched. A marine carries a knife, a pistol and one main weapon. Here is a list of the main weapons:

• Light Machine Gun (LMG) - The default marine main weapon
• Shotgun
• Heavy Machine Gun (HMG)
• Grenade Launcher (GL)
• Hand Grenade (nades)
  
• Mines – Can be placed on floors, walls and ceilings.

This concludes the first part of my Natural Selection review. The next section will take a look at the more unqiue alien team.